


caught in a rad bromance

by pigsocks



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kink Meme, M/M, Ryuji is kind of dense but that's why we love him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigsocks/pseuds/pigsocks
Summary: “Okay but seriously, Ryuji,” Ann says, eyes twinkling with mischief (oh no), “how many times have you and Akira had sex now? Because I am preeeeetty sure that whatever number you're tallying makes this, technically, not a bromance.”





	caught in a rad bromance

**Author's Note:**

> written as a prompt for a kink meme fill! https://personakinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/993.html?thread=1024737#cmt1024737 It was just too funny to pass up...

Hangouts with Ann were always pretty fun, but it's the first time that Ryuji's been somewhere so... _pink._ This is her favourite dessert cafe that he's heard so much about, with a weird frou-frou French name, but this is the first time he's ever actually set foot inside with her. It's a lowkey special occasion for her, to celebrate some sort of new photo shoot involving athletic gear, and who better to celebrate this with than the guy who actually knows a dang thing about them?

Ann's already ordered some horrifically elaborate strawberry crepe monstrosity (she appears to be on a first-name basis with some of the waitresses here), while Ryuji settles for a slightly less fancy ice cream float. A blonde eyebrow raises at him.

“Really? That's it?” she asks. Ryuji rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

“I'm tryin' to save up for a new video game,” he says. “Me 'n Akira have already played through all of Final Fantasy IV and we wanna get the next one. This is the one thing on the menu with a price under 4 digits, okay? Cut me some slack here.”

Ann's mouth twists in a way that suggests she's trying to hide a smile, but it's obvious she's failing. “'We', huh?” she prompts innocently. “Isn't that game single-player?”

“Well... yeah,” he admits, grinning. “But we found a way to play it co-op, see, we take turns playing in like 2 hour chunks. When I'm playing, Akira's not allowed to say shit about what I'm doin', and when it's his turn I gotta keep my mouth shut about how _terrible_ he is at roleplayin' games.”

He can't help but suppress a laugh at the memory of Akira nearly having an aneurysm when Ryuji used a rare item in a random encounter just to fuck with him. That had been one hell of a night.

Ann giggles. “Dorks. Relax, I'll treat you this time, you can keep your precious 750 yen.”

“You're the best, man,” he sighs. “But if I'd have known you were treating I probably woulda ordered something bigger, though.”

“Don't push it,” she says severely, though she laughs. Their order comes and Ryuji gets distracted by the ridiculous mountain of ice cream, strawberries, strawberry pocky and sauce drizzled on a crepe (it's in there somewhere) set in front of Ann.

“Damn, dude! Way to make me feel inadequate here!” He's still in awe as the waitress places his drink in front of him before swiftly absconding. At least for 750 yen his ice cream float comes with a little paper parasol and a ribbon on the straw. Ann immediately starts digging in with gusto, with the offer to share still on the table (Ryuji declines, strawberries aren't really his thing but he does sneak a spoonful of whipped cream), leaving a comfortable silence between the two of them.

“Wait, so how many hours have you guys clocked in on that game?” Ann asks with her spoon in her mouth. “You two were already practically glued at the hip even before Akira picked up that game console.”

“Dunno. Like 90 hours or somethin'.” Ryuji takes a long slurp of root beer and melty ice cream as he thinks fondly about how they got a single player game to work for the two of them. “Our file's a liar though, it says 90 something hours but that's just 'cause we forgot to turn the console off one time and the clock was runnin' while I gave him a BJ so-”

Half-chewed strawberries and crepe abruptly reverse out of Ann's esophagus and she spends a good few minutes whacking at her chest, eyes watering with the force of her coughs.

“Shit! Ann, you okay?” Ryuji squawks in a panic, reaching over to thump her on the shoulder. Then it dawns on him that his foot has once again made a home in his mouth and his face goes a bright scarlet. “I-I-I mean! That's just – uh!!”

_I do believe I may have fucked up here,_ he thinks, trying really hard not to notice everyone staring at them while simultaneously worrying about the state of Ann's lungs.

“Ryuji, what the _hell_ ,” Ann rasps finally, wiping her eyes. “Give a girl a warning when you're about to talk about your fricking sex life!”

Ryuji's mouth flaps open and closed like a trash can lid. “What?! I _accidentally_ told you about a normal thing between bros and your first instinct is to choke on your goddamn crepe!”

“OH my god! That is NOT a normal thing!” A manicured finger jabs at his increasingly distressed face. “You just told me that you don't JUST play games over at your 'best friend's' house, you get up to video games and chill with Akira's dick _somehow_ making it into your mouth-”

“ _Ann!_ ” Ryuji yelps, voice reaching a fever pitch. “Could you BE any freakin' louder? I don't think the guys over in Hawaii heard you!!”

Oh, people are definitely staring now at the two blonde idiots outscreeching each other in the window booth. Ann flashes them her Oscar-nominated smile and waits for them to get back to minding their own business before turning to her friend again, who is currently wishing for the Reaper to somehow materialize and strangle the embarrassment out of him with those chains of his.

“....BJ, huh? Expected you to be more of a touchy-feely handjob kinda guy-”

“Shut uuuuuupppppp.”

“Okay but seriously, Ryuji,” she says, eyes twinkling with mischief (oh no), “how many times have you guys had sex now? Because I am preeeeetty sure that whatever number you're tallying makes this, technically, not a bromance.”

Her grin stretches wide and Ryuji is pretty sure that most species of shark show less teeth than Takamaki Ann right now. “And yes, bro-jobs count.”

“Please don't ever call them that ever again,” he grunts, his forehead thudding onto the table. He has to really think about it, if he has to put a number to this sort of thing (and he knows Ann won't leave him alone until he does). “M-maybe like.... uhhhh...”

It started small... but what friends _haven't_ jerked each other off? That's practically a rite of passage! Okay, so maybe he'd given and received a handjob/blowjob or two (or seven), but Akira is his best friend! There's nothing Ryuji wants more in life than to make sure his best friend is happy, and if the occasional friendly suck-off session just so happened to make him happy, that was that.

He also knows about the other little ways to make him happy, though; he knew that if he planted a smooch on Akira's temple his eyes would crinkle behind his glasses with that cute little secret smile, and that if he surprised Akira with a can of iced coffee on the subway platform he'd complain that it wasn't as good as Sojiro's but drink it anyway, eyes bright as stars and a smile on his lips.

He also knew that his own heart felt like a kite dipping and swooping through sunny skies whenever Akira laid his head on his shoulder when they were playing video games, or when they'd stay up till the wee hours of the morning texting about predictions for where the plot of their current X-Folders story arc was going to go.

...Come to think of it, that was some kind of sign, wasn't it?

“Uuughhh, this is so embarrassing,” Ryuji mutters, his face still plastered to the table. He's pretty sure his face is hot enough to melt a hole through it by now. Ann nudges impatiently at one of his shins.

He really doesn't keep tabs on this sort of thing, because why would he? So maybe he's spent a few nights rutting against Akira, and then there was that time more recently when Akira held Ryuji's thighs together before hauling his ankles over his shoulder and...

He _really_ shouldn't be recalling all of this in public. Panther's catsuit seems grey and whitewashed compared to his face right now.

“Would it incriminate me to say I mighta lost count?” His voice is still muffled by the table, the lone barrier between him and reality.

“What, you can't count higher than 11?” Ann snickers.

“Bite me.”

“Love you too.”

Ann's fingers are running gently through the soft blonde fuzz on Ryuji's head, as if encouraging him to think more and deeply about Akira. It's a comfort gesture that's carried over from their grade school days. The moment could even be called tender, if it wasn't ruined by surreptitious crepe-chewing noises and the occasional gulp.

“You know,” she says after a few moments, voice soft but still mirthful, “you're really reading too much into this. As much as I'm ragging on you for being a colossal dumbass, why not just call a spade a spade? You obviously care a whole lot about Akira, and you know that he cares about you too, so, logically...”

“Logically what? You know that ain't my forte,” Ryuji sighs, but he knows exactly what she's talking about. The tips of his ears are burning, though it's tempered somewhat by Ann's nails scritching soft lines on his scalp.

“C'mon, you can do it,” she coos. “Search your feelings, you know them to be true.”

“You don't even like Star Wars, don't quote that to me,” he mutters. He lifts his head up a bit to rest his chin on the table, lost in thought. Maybe she was right...? Akira was more than just a leader, and definitely more than a friend he shared a bed with sometimes, or kissed good morning on Sundays when they've slept in till indecent hours. But surely that meant that this was the next big step? They're no longer bros but now... boyfriends? Does this mean the L word itself?

“...This really isn't a bromance, huh?” he says slowly, exhaling shakily. Baby steps. “I... I guess I really love Akira, then?”

“Oh you're deep in this bitch now, Ryuji! Welcome, brother, to the Going-Home-After-School-For-Sloppy-Makeouts Club,” Ann says smugly, turning back to her half-done crepe to finish the job. Still, the smile on her lips is positively _radiant,_ not to mention a long time coming.

“Wh-who the hell are you to welcome me to- that ain't a club!” he splutters, suddenly indignant. (He can't deny that that is sometimes _exactly_ what he and Akira do after school.) Ann herself had only just made things official with Shiho, after hemming and hawing and _pining_ for months and months before Ryuji told her to buck up and -

Hmm. Birds of a feather, indeed.

“Doesn't matter! You're one of us now!”

“Let's not forget that you were a goddamn mess textin' Akira at 2 am asking how best to confess to Shiho in the first effin' place!” Ryuji snorts. He puts on a falsetto and bats his lashes obnoxiously in a terrible facsimile of the girl sitting in front of him. (Their acting skills are roughly on par with each other. No wonder they're such great pals.)

“ _'Oh em gee Akira help me I just love Shiho sooooo much_ _I might cry_ _'_ ,” he shrills, pleased to see Ann's jaw dropping. He tosses in a fake swoon too, just to milk her offended reaction. “ _'Akira_ _aaaa_ _please I'm only a useless lesbian here, I can't make decisions by myself'_ -”

He dodges the first few swats but is less lucky on the last, where Ann whaps him square on the nose in her fury. “Yeowch!!”

“We are _not_ here to talk about how I got my beautiful, amazing, strong and incredibly talented athlete girlfriend, okay?” she snaps, her cheeks colouring at the memory. Not one of her proudest moments, she'll admit, but it all worked out in the end, so. “We're here to talk about YOUR clueless ass!”

She takes a second to compute what he mentioned and her brows furrow together in furious recollection. “...Wait a minute, how do you know what time I texted Akira about this? I don't remember telling you about that...”

Dawning realization makes for a very entertaining facial expression on someone like Ann, but when it gives way to something utterly devious Ryuji instantly feels like a cornered rat staring down a hungry panther. Well, shit. It seems as though he is going to pay dearly for his moment of fun. Ann points dramatically at him and he swears he can almost see the flames gathering at the tip of her finger.

“ _Sakamoto Ryuji,_ ” she commands, and he winces. “Do you mean to tell me that you were – you were there WITH him, at ass o'clock in the morning, reading my texts together? In _bed_?”

“It was just a sleepover! Friends have sleepovers, that's a normal thing! Your text woke us both up,” he whines, but she's not having it.

“Yeah? And how often do you guys share a bed AND read personal texts together? He read it aloud for you too?”

“A-a few times? Look, it gets cold up in that attic-”

“It's May!”

“Well, Akira gets nightmares sometimes s-so I -”

“Ohhhh my god, you guys really are like an old married couple!” A loud peal of laughter bursts forth from her and she quickly clamps a hand over her mouth, lest people start staring again. “Face it, man, it's gotten matrimonial up in here now!”

“Stop saying shit like that!” Ryuji hisses, but he really can't deny it... that's pretty matrimonial, yeah. Ann's pretty much hit the nail on the head entirely, and there's no point in dragging this out any further. Or at least, he'll do it to get Ann to stop cackling, for starters.

And also because he really, _really_ loves Akira. Now's a good a time as any to finally put a name to this thing they've got going on, since Ann has spelled out oh so clearly to him that this is _not_ a bromance.

Ryuji chugs the rest of his pitifully melted float in one go before getting up, knees banging into the table in his haste.

“I gotta – I gotta go,” he blurts out, red spreading across his cheeks and down his neck. “I gotta... go make a phone call – to someone real important – ”

He turns tail and flees the cafe, leaving Ann to her hysterics. His thumb hovers over the 'call' button by Akira's contact info when he gets a text notification.

**ANN:** wait wait wait!

**RYUJI:** IM DONE HERE ffs i havent even left the buildin yet

**ANN:** you should give Akira a pair of socks with your face on them

**RYUJI:** wat

**RYUJI:** y the eff would i do that

**ANN:** so you can be with him every step of the way, bro ( ˘ ³˘)♥

**RYUJI:** jgjfdjkljkgjkldf

**RYUJI:** OH

**RYUJI:** MY GOD

It looks like he's finally gone through with his toothless threats to block her, because Ann's next text doesn't go through. She turns her screen off and _laughs_ , triumph, happiness for her friend and strawberry syrup running in equal measure through her veins. What would Ryuji do without her?

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ryuji and Ann are true mlm and wlw solidarity and I love them okay <3 I love their friendship so writing their dialogue was super fun!!  
> (Also in Akira and Ryuji's FFIV game Ryuji probably tossed Yang's spoon at some low-level encounter and Akira countered by tackling him off the bed)  
> I'm over at [tumblr](http://pigsocks.tumblr.com/) too if you wanna swing by!


End file.
